For She Is Wrath by Emily Varga

Author:Emily Varga
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Twenty-five

“Tell me everything.” I leapt on Noor as soon as the carriage took off, trying to get the thought of Mazin pressing my hand to his lips out of my mind.

“Well, while you were making moon eyes at Mazin, I was gathering some useful information. The security in the palace is atrocious. I managed to get to the kitchens and gossip with the kitchen maids.”

I leaned back as we hit a bump in the dirt road, the cloud of dust in our wake causing Noor to cough and rub her eyes.

“What did you hear?” I didn’t wait for her to recover. I was eager to get back to the plan. Back to reality. Back to hating Mazin. I could feel myself slipping into familiar ways, and cursed myself for the hold he seemed to have over me.

“There is a group of rebels in the city,” Noor said, still rubbing the dirt from her eyes, “fighting against emperor Vahid and calling him a usurper. They’ve caused significant problems throughout Basral, but apparently Vahid has tried to crush them with a crackdown on all protests.”

“Hence his awful display today. Anam mentioned something similar—that there was a protest recently that turned into a bloodbath. And Mazin had been there.”

Noor nodded. “Yes, Mazin was there. The rebels wanted to bring down Vahid and the control he has over zoraat in the empire. They say he doesn’t belong on the throne, that he was only given it by a djinn.”

“Not a terribly original argument,” I said, looking out of the tanga at the red-gold city streets around us. The breeze from the speed of the tanga whipped through my hair as I watched people turn to us curiously. Most people kept their heads down in fear, scuttling through the streets as the noise of the carriage reached them. Of course they would; if they dared to protest against anything, the emperor would burn them alive.

Vahid had promised freedom, choice, a way out of poverty. Instead, the djinn power had corrupted him.

“Vahid himself tells the tale of being gifted zoraat from a djinn. He just acts like he was chosen to rule because of it, instead of being polluted so much by the magic of the unseen that he wanted to control it all.”

I flexed my fingers, thinking of the last dose of zoraat I had taken just this morning. I thought of that black tendril of power curling around my finger like a snake under my skin. I still wasn’t even sure if that was real, but if I wasn’t careful, Vahid’s greed might happen to me. I needed to remember that in all this, I couldn’t allow myself to be taken by the djinn power too.

“You and I agree with the rebels’ cause at least,” Noor reasoned, and turned to look out to the city as well. The wind brushed the ends of her short curls, and she looked much younger in the afternoon sun. Something had changed about her, something I couldn’t put my finger on.

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